317 research outputs found
Computational Chemistry and Bioinformatics Research Core (CCBRC)
Get PDFDepartment/Unit poster (BioMolecular Sciences). Corresponding author: Sushil Mishra ([email protected])https://egrove.olemiss.edu/pharm_annual_posters_2022/1012/thumbnail.jp
230 - Sushil Paudyal
No full textDigital dermatitis is a major cause of lameness in dairy cows causing pain in the limbs leading to reduced animal welfare and significant economic loss. With strict antibiotic regulations and increasing organic dairies, the clinically validated non-antibiotic treatment options are of great value. The objective of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of treatment of digital dermatitis using different combinations of copper sulfate, iodine, and honey. Cows with M1 and M2 DD lesion score were identified and enrolled in the hoof-trimming chute. Cows were randomized to be treated with one of the three treatment options: Copper sulfate and Iodine (CS-I), Honey and Iodine (HO-I) and Control (CON). All 70 cows were followed up on D3, D12 and D28 and a subsample of 45 cows were followed until d120 to evaluate lesion size, lesion stage, lameness score and pain response. Tissue samples were collected on D3, D28 and D120 to investigate dynamics of microbial metagenomics. The data were analyzed in SAS using PROC MIXED and PROC GENMOD with repeated measures. The results show that 43% of the lesions were found on the left feet and 57% on the right feet. The early erosive form of lesions changes into papillomatous mature form as the lesion progresses irrespective of treatment application. The lesion size differed among treatment groups and the effect varied with different follow-up days (P< 0.05). The lesion decreased for both CS-I and HO-I group till day 12 after which the HO-I group had an increase in lesion size. In contrast to this CON group had a slower decrease in lesion size. The pain response was decreased for CS-I and less for HO-I groups. The odds of pain and the odds of getting a lame cow decreases as the time progresses. Thus, non-antibiotic treatment options are effective in controlling pain and decreasing lesion size up to 12 days. Also, clinical assessment of animals and evaluation of lesions suggest CS-I combination is superior to HO-I and CON group
Market-based price-risk management for coffee producers
Get PDFCoffee is characterised by high levels of price fluctuation, which exposes producers to price risk. Its wide trading in international commodity futures markets offers scope for producers to manage the risk by hedging on these markets, the mechanism for which is based on the use of put options. This article uses historical data of actual put-options contracts to estimate the costs of the mechanism, the benefits being inferred from field evidence. It emerges that the costs are relatively low and outweighed by the benefits for most producers. The article then looks at the operational feasibility of the mechanism for producers and compares it with other hedging mechanisms
Fair trade and corporate social responsibility
No full textThis paper examines how the expansion of mainstreaming of Fair Trade over the last decade and the increasing corporate attention to social responsibility during the same period is resulting in Fair Trade evolving as a form of corporate social responsibility. We further examine the challenges this poses for the Fair Trade movement. © 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © Institute of Economic Affairs 2009. Published by Blackwell Publishing, Oxford
Crossfire:does fairtrade have more impact than conventional trade or trade certified by other sustainability standards?
Get PDFUser-independent robust statistics for computer vision
No full textThe goal of robust methods in computer vision is to extract all the information necessary to solve a given task while discarding everything that is not needed. The tasks can be very simple or very complex, but in real-life applications, a robust procedure is always required. In the end, the performance of a machine for solving a vision problem will be judged against that of human observers performing the equivalent task. Since we know that the human visual system works in a much more sophisticated manner than the present day computer vision systems, this ultimate goal is still far away. Nonetheless, the aim of robust computer vision systems has always been to emulate human vision-like behavior in the presence of noise. Furthermore, the
robust algorithms should be independent of user inputs up to quite a large extent. However, contrary to this, almost all state-of-the-art robust estimation algorithms are dependent on the user for providing some information about the underlying characteristics of the data on which the algorithm operates. Often times, it is hard for the user to supply such information to the
algorithm. The work presented here focuses on developing robust algorithms for computer vision, that
can estimate the underlying model in the data without any sort of user intervention. We present several interesting applications both in geometric computer vision and medical imaging. In the first part, we present a completely user-free robust regression algorithm called the generalized projection based M-estimator (gpbM) which can estimate multiple inlier structures present in the data also containing a lot of gross outliers without any user input. We also show how the
model estimate can be further refined by using optimization on Grassmann manifolds. In the second part, we present three important applications in medical imaging involving 3D computed tomography (CT) data – automatic detection of coronary lesions, automatic correction of coronary centerlines and automatic segmentation of coronary vessels. Finally, in the third part, we present the application of automatic and robust document image alignment and comparison.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesIncludes vitaby Sushil Mitta
Holographic optics-based schlieren diffraction interferometer
No full textThis paper describes a scheme that uses holographic optics for realization of schlieren diffraction interferometer. The interferometer has been realized with single holographic optical element in conjunction with a collimated beam and the focal plane-modifying element. Multiplexing ability of holographic optics also enables simultaneous operation of more than one technique such as schlieren, shadowgraph and interferometric techniques. Combined schemes where one or more techniques could be applied simultaneously are useful for detailed investigations of phenomena like flow of compressible fluids, because each method has its own characteristic strengths and weaknesses. Procedures for the generation of holographic optical element and realization of various schemes have been presented.
KUMAR Raj ; KAURA Sushil K. ; CHHACHHIA D. P. ; MOHAN D. ; AGGARWAL A. K.
Fair trade without the froth:a dispassionate economic analysis of 'Fair Trade'
No full textWhen it comes to the purchase of everyday goods such as coffee, tea and sugar, most consumers believe that sellers of Fair Trade products occupy the high moral ground. Despite its strong statements, however, the claims of the Fair Trade movement have not been tested properly.This important study, whilst not doubting the position that Fair Trade is part and parcel of a market economy, does question the claims made by the Fair Trade movement. The market economy and free trade – often decried by proponents of the Fair Trade movement – may deliver the benefits that the Fair Trade model brings without the costs and bureaucracy involved in obtaining the Fair Trade label. Furthermore, this study questions the exclusivity often claimed by Fair Trade organisations: there are other social labelling initiatives that perhaps have more transparent objectives.The author – a trade expert from Dundee University with broad practical experience of international trade – also finds that criticisms of Fair Trade are exaggerated, and he does accept that Fair Trade can bring some benefits to producers in particular circumstances.This study is essential reading for all those who wish to understand better this 21st-century consumer phenomenon and whether it actually delivers the benefits its proponents claim
Barriers to prosperity: Developing countries and the need for trade liberalisation
No full textTrade expert Sushil Mohan, in a paper published by the IEA, argues that non-tariff barriers are an important impediment to trade for less developed countries and need to be brought to the forefront of the trade debate.Non-tariff barriers are an important impediment to trade for less developed countries. Such barriers can be very high on both processed and unprocessed agricultural products. These barriers include:EU rules of origin and rules relating to traceability.The combination of these rules with preferential trade agreements which becomes more onerous as the degree of processing increases.Health and safety regulations.Labelling schemes such as fair trade and organic.Environmental standards, such as those relating to palm oil exports.Both export and import procedures imposed by developing countries themselves: for example, exporting in India involves 12 separate processes.Non-tariff barriers need to be brought to the forefront of the trade debate if developing countries are to move into the export of higher value added products.Currently, developing countries have a low share of exports of final processed products which normally have a higher value added than primary agricultural products. For example, developing countries account for 91 per cent of raw coffee exports but only 3 per cent of processed coffee exports.This situation is frequently blamed on developed countries applying trade barriers and escalating tariffs on processed commodities.However, there is little truth in this allegation, at least in relation to the important commodities of coffee, tea and cocoa. However, tariffs barriers do exist in relation to other commodities such as cotton, rice and so on.Not only are tariff barriers close to zero on coffee, tea and cocoa, there is also very little tariff escalation - that is the level of tariffs on processed products is not significantly greater than the level of tariffs on unprocessed products. Japan is the only major exception to this general pattern.On the other hand, tariff barriers between developing countries themselves can be very high. For example, tariffs on roasted coffee are 71 per cent in Mexico and 99 per cent in India. There is, however, little evidence of tariff escalation on trade between developing countries: tariffs are often very high on both processed and unprocessed agricultural products.There may well be important tariff barriers with regard to higher degrees of processing of more complex products (such as chocolate). These are especially prevalent in product lines where there is competition between developed and under-developed countries or where developed countries produce some of the ingredients for these products (for example, milk and sugar for chocolate).Non-tariff barriers are often home grown within developing countries themselves. The experience of trade reform suggests that the benefits from their removal will mainly flow to developing countries. Non-tariff barriers must therefore be a clear priority in future trade policy and in domestic policy making in poor countries
E-Mail authorship attribution for computer forensics
No full textIn this chapter, we briefly overview the relatively new discipline of computer forensics and describe an investigation of forensic authorship attribution or identification undertaken on a corpus of multi-author and multi-topic e-mail documents. We use an extended set of e-mail document features such as structural characteristics and linguistic patterns together with a Support Vector Machine as the learning algorithm. Experiments on a number of e-mail documents generated by different authors on a set of topics gave promising results for both inter- and intratopic author categorisation
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